Patreon Exclusive Fiction: Escape Pod C2A by Claire Berry

Escape Pod C2A

by Claire Berry

Though escape pods were designed to accommodate up to twenty personnel each, only three people made it into C2A before it left the station. Charlie, the Mechanic, and me.

The Mechanic has been silent since the pod went dark. Charlie did, very flippantly, share his theory with us as to why the entire electronic system–up to the emergency lights—is down. Before the crash, the pod suffered a series of shocks that damaged the hull, and one or several key components stored beneath it. Asteroid belt, most likely. Which means the pod—old, poorly maintained—initiated the re-entry procedure on a random planet.

Everything we know about this place, we know from the quick glimpse I gave the readings before the whole thing went dark. The conditions are unsustainable for human life. Opening the hatch mechanically would kill us all. Trying to access the electric panel from the inside would expose us to radiation levels our bodies couldn’t withstand for more than a minute.

We’re going to die in here. In the all-encompassing dark.

At first, I tried to seek reassurance, companionship, with the people on board with me. I followed their sounds, Charlie’s voice, reached for their bodies and occasionally found a shoulder, an arm, that I would grip onto. But they always shrunk away from me, tore themselves from my grasp. They needed time. They needed space.

So, I mapped out the capsule, with hands extended. The twenty or-so seats, lined up against the capsule walls, the giant hutch that could have been our escape, had we landed on the right damn planet, then the smooth, cold screens, the buttoned panel that only the Mechanic knows how to operate. I memorized the whole place, went around and around, until Charlie asked me to stop pacing.

Rations are stored beneath each seat and there’s too many, of course, for the three of us, but the Mechanic is a big man and eats more than his fair share, and Charlie spills most of our water when he knocks into me in the dark. We gather what we can, use our clothes to sponge the spill, then wring them back into the bottle. The water tastes metallic and stale after that. I suck the water from my saturated sleeves when I go to sleep.

As a way to try to keep the time, I carve notches on the wall with a nail I found. One for each day I think we’ve landed. Charlie hates the noise it makes, and I don’t tell him I do too. We’ve been here for five days.

On what I think is the sixth day, The Mechanic disappears. I find his makeshift bed of frayed seatbelts, his glasses, and the wrappings of rations I handed him. One for each day. I think.

I ask Charlie to help me look for him, but he just grunts at me from his corner, and I know not to insist. Nothing I feel, and touch, and probe, is human, except for Charlie, who jerks away from me. In the dark, in the silence, I know the Mechanic is gone.

The next day, I think, Charlie goes too. I don’t know where, because I search everything on my hands and knees, then on my tiptoes, climbing on the seats. There’s no hole big enough for them to crawl through, nowhere for them to hide. The silence gets to me more than the darkness does, and I hear, or imagine, the Mechanic’s shuffling and Charlie’s grunts and groans and growls, from everywhere and nowhere at once.

Sometimes, I see her, when I know I shouldn’t. When I know I can’t.

The outline of her cheek, in the dark. The shape of her shoulder. I see her moving, on the edge of my vision, and I open my eyes wide, to take in more of her, to reach for her, but she’s always a breath too far.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her, and sometimes I think she replies.

“I panicked,” I say, and then I think I can see her, really see her, and turn my head to follow her but she’s gone too fast.

I’ve been here for twelve days.

Sleep comes to me easily, or not at all. I can’t tell which. Even my dreams are dark, and silent, and she’s in them, too. She’s everywhere I’m not seeing. I use the Mechanic’s bed because of the smell he left there, not pleasant, but distinctly human, and when I wake up, or open my eyes, I think there’s something curled up against me.

Sometimes I think I’m burning, and other times I’m so cold my chattering teeth bite chunks out of my tongue.

I carve another notch into the wall and count them diligently. I’ve been here for fourteen days.

“I didn’t mean to do it, I swear I didn’t.” I talk to myself, in the dark, though I imagine she can hear. “I am sorry.” I hope you’re alive.

It all happened so fast after all.

She brushes the hair from my face, and I feel the press of her breasts against mine, and I know I ought to step back. She’s not there. She’s angry. She could kill me if she wants because her fingers rest on the hollow of my neck and they’re real, they’re hers, unless they’re my own. I smell the earth on her, the coffee she used to like. When I reach for her waist, my hand goes through the air.

I love her and she’s not there.

I think the days are getting longer. I think I hear the Mechanic, behind the wall, if I press my ear to it so hard it stops the blood flow. I think I’m hungry, but I can’t feel my stomach.

I can’t see anything, but I think I see so much.

In my dreams, or in my head, I hear her footsteps, running towards me, and I hear the alarm. The woosh of the hutch falling close. The escape pod tearing itself away from a breached ship.

And then there’s the silence.

If she were here, she’d say something. If she were here, she’d forgive me.

I get up from the Mechanic’s bed, ready to log one more day, but my fingers run along the cool wall without catching on anything. Palm flat against the metal, I retrace my steps, searching the whole thing, top to bottom.

The notches are gone. The wall is smooth. I’ve been here for…

I have not been here. Without the notches, the physical manifestation of time passing, I haven’t been here at all. I’m brand new. The metal is brand new.

When I reach down for the nail, I expect my fingers to close around nothing, but the crooked, rusty thing is right where I left it. I carve a new notch in the metal. Something deep and long, that I wouldn’t be able to miss. The nail clatters on the floor before I realize I’ve dropped it.

There’s a strange wetness dripping down my wrist, running down to my elbow. I lap it up without thinking, the taste strange on my dry tongue. It’s metal, it’s rust, it’s me, my blood from where the nail dug into my fingertips. I’m thirsty and my mouth is desperate for any semblance of moisture, so I suck on my bloody finger until nothing comes up.

I’ve been here for one day.

She’s here with me too. I think she’s always been here. I think she, somehow, snuck her way into the escape pod even after I pressed the emergency launch button. She loves me, so she found a way.

“I love you too,” I say, and she tells me to cut off my own hand.

She doesn’t know what she’s saying, I think. Her voice sounds different. And she can’t be that angry. She has to understand I was scared. I didn’t mean to do it, but I wanted to survive, we all wanted to survive, and there were other escape pods. I saved her life, by closing the hutch before she could reach it. If I hadn’t, she’d be in here with me. She is in here with me.

Still, I grab the nail, to appease her. It’s not as sharp as it used to be, but it makes quick work of the layer of skin, and cuts through the tendons easily. I drink eagerly, easily, the blood that comes out of me. This is what she wanted, to save me, she knew I was thirsty.

The bone is a harder thing. The nail slips on it, coated with thick blood which I seem to have an endless supply of. I chip at it slowly, each impact reverberating into the very center of my body, pleasing her, while it hurts me. She whispers to me that I could break the bone, that the nail is useless anyway.

I think she’s right. I think she isn’t there. I think the dark has seeped into my head, I think the silence got too loud.

I break the bone, detach my hand, and cradle it to sleep.

The wall is smooth again when I wake up. My hand, my cut-off hand, is throbbing, and burning, and I can feel it in places where it isn’t. Like I can feel her.

She’s still moving, the dark taking shapes I’ve forgotten, shadows distorting into what could almost be her face. She’s not angry anymore. I think she pities me. She follows me when I move, her cold fingers pushing at my back, pulling at my sleeves. My body gives up on me but she doesn’t. She keeps me moving, she keeps me alive, she shows me the life we had.

Opening the hutch mechanically isn’t hard. We’re trained to do it because the pods are old and the electric system shot. There’s a wire you have to pull. I can’t use my hands, so I use my teeth. I find one and pull. Then another one and pull. One of them has to open the hutch. One of them has to open it so I can see.

I find one and pull.

The hutch opens. And I let the light in.